Shirtsleeves
by JealousOfTheMoon
Summary: It’s the only way he can handle the thought of things as they were, because there’s really nothing more upsetting than the ruination of a perfectly good shirt. Really. TenDonna Friendship. Post S4 Finale.


_Written to "What Hurts the Most" by Rascal Flatts. I couldn't think of anything to write and it was getting beyond frustrating, so I just hit shuffle on my music and started scribbling. Written in three minutes and thirty-six seconds; revised in less than ten. It's probably no good, but it's something. _

_This is not intended to be a DoctorDonna ship—I am a strong proponent of the "The DoctorDonna Is Amazing Because They Are Best Mates" club—but I realize that it could be taken that way, so whatever floats your boat. (Pun intended…)_

**Shirtsleeves** _–by JotM_

It was pouring outside. He'd already removed his wet suit jacket and slung it over a convenient part of the TARDIS. It would be dry soon. If she'd been here, he would have removed his shirt, too—just for the sake of hearing her scoff at his skinniness and insist that he go get the tin of biscuits and fatten up a little, for goodness' sake! When he returned, she'd have clean, dry shirt for him ready, and she'd tell him to cover up before her eyes received permanent scars from his awful appearance.

He couldn't bear to remove the blasted thing now.

She was gone.

His wrists had a damp ring of pressure around them. Looking down, he dimly registered that this was because his cuffs were wet. It was irritating. He wanted to scratch at the spot like a small child.

She hadn't cared. He'd said goodbye forever, and she hadn't known—she hadn't cared. She'd just shrieked at her friend, just the same way she'd shrieked at him about being a Martian and she'd shrieked at him about pockets. He'd hated that shrieking. Somewhere, between the shrieking in her wedding gown and the fussing over his shirtlessness, she'd changed. Then she'd gone and saved the world and been brilliant—she just _had_ to be brilliant—and now she was gone. She was gone because she'd been brilliant, she'd been brilliant because of him...

And in the end, she hadn't cared.

That didn't bother him—oh, no, it didn't. What really bothered him was the way his hair was wet and his trousers were damp and water was seeping through his trainers and _ugh_, there was that ring-of-dampness again, this time around his neck. His collar was going to stifle and choke him, and the chill went from his Adam's apple down to his collarbone.

He hated it.

He tore at the stupid blue shirt with his fingers, snapping buttons and ruining seams, finally shredding the fabric around his wrists with his teeth. He glared at the buttons—they refused to break between his teeth—and curled his lips, letting out a decided snarl.

He was _snarling_ at a _shirt._

If she'd been here, she would have walloped him on the head for that. Twice. Then she would have given him a hug and told him he was a dimwit.

He couldn't bring himself to hate her, not for saving him again and again, even if she hadn't known him in the end. He was already too angry with himself, a steady anger that had been building over the last nine hundred years of his existence, and he didn't think he could possibly hate himself anymore. So he's hating a shirt.

He stared at his torn, saliva-filled cuffs. Remorse fills him. He finds he's not angry at the wretched piece of fabric anymore, but just as he can't hate the proper source of all the pain, he finds he can't mourn the proper pain either.

Perhaps that's how he knew when he cried that it wasn't because she's gone and he's the only one that remembers. He cried because his shirtsleeves were ruined, and that shirt had been one of his favorites_._

He didn't change it the next morning. He thought instead about how nice a shirt it was and how well it went with his pinstripe suit. Donna would have laughed at him and call him barmy, and he supposed she'd be right, but he couldn't help it. He realized his clone's not the only one she made human, because he knew _he's _never been so human before 'till now—not even with that wretched ordeal with the chameleon circuit and Joan—and there was something horrible about it all, even with his two hearts. He wondered--still wonders--if he's the real Human/Time Lord meta_crisis..._because crisis is the only word that came to mind as he sat and mourned his damaged shirt.

It was so ridiculous that it was almost as if she were back again, in all her ridiculous companion glory—and then he stopped himself.

_A shirt. _It was all about a shirt, not her. He'd been reduced to first hating, then mourning, and now remembering—a shirt. It was the only way he could handle the thought of things as they were, because there's really nothing more upsetting than the ruination of a perfectly good shirt.

Really.

He gave the ragged sleeves one more assessing glance and then shrugged, deciding not to change just yet.

It'd do for now.


End file.
